For a high-hydration dough your shaped loaf is really quite firm resulting from nicely developed gluten. The proof of this is that your shaped dough holds its shape very well. Using the Dutch oven is a great way to bake high-hydration dough because the walls of the Dutch oven offer needed support and doesn't allow the high-hydration dough to spread during baking. You got nice open crumb, which is the beauty of well developed high-hydration dough.

Thanks Howard. Sometimes I have wondered if I was over working the dough - but that explains a lot. I'm really happy about that now. I don't do hand kneading as I have a bit of a wonky wrist so it gets a good 5 minute knead in my machine then I do 3X stretch and fold as per Peter Reinhart. It works very well and I love the process, just can't rush it. That was todays lesson!!!!

All original site content copyright 2015 The Fresh Loaf unless stated otherwise. Content posted by community members is their own. The Fresh Loaf is not responsible for community member content. If you see anything inappropriate on the site or have any questions, contact me at floydm at thefreshloaf dot com. This site is powered by Drupal and Mollom. It is part of the Federated Media Publishing - Food channel. Click here for advertising information.